3C Article n°2

I built a life on oversharing – until I saw its costs, and learned the quiet thrill (=
frisson, excitation) of privacy

Moya Lothian-McLean,

The Guardian, May 2, 2022

From social media to journalism, I shared in order to be heard. Now, I am beginning to listen
to myself.

I’m part of a generation used to living their life in full view – our collective adolescence
measured in a succession of messaging apps and social networks. Each of them
5 encouraged increasing levels of openness and entrenched (= ancrer, enraciner) the
message: sharing prompts caring or, better yet, attention.

For much of my life, almost everything became fodder (matière) to be shared online. Funny
texts from friends, videos of strangers on the street, stray thoughts about sexual proclivities
(propension, tendance). Privacy, both mine and that of the people I came into contact with,
10 was a mythical concept. If I had experienced something, surely that made it my anecdote,
to do with as I pleased? This approach caused problems. A colleague warned me about
sharing pictures in my underwear, prompting (= soulever) a furious reaction. Family
fractures resulted from drunk tweets. But why, I would think defiantly, should I censor
myself?

15 Over the past two years, though, something has changed: I’ve started to properly pull back,
prompted by the ongoing presence in my life of someone I love very deeply, whose attitude
to privacy is the antithesis of mine. I had learned to see sharing as widely as possible as an
act of pride. To me, posting a candid photograph to 10,000 followers was akin (semblable
à) to loudly claiming my beloved for the world to see. He took a different view: attention
20 from faceless avatars meant nothing to him. Why, he asked, did I feel compelled (=
contrainte, forcée) to perform my life for these people?

It was a good question and one I wasn’t quite able to articulate an answer to, becoming
defensive at first. Even now, I’m not sure there’s a single way to understand the drive to
broadcast (diffuser) every facet of my existence. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that
25 oversharing was a behaviour I learned early and engaging in it resulted in an incredible
amount of positive reinforcement as I grew older. Another factor was starting out as a
lifestyle journalist in the twilight of the 2010s.

Reprogramming yourself is a fascinating exercise. The urge to share is most insistent when
I’m alone, prompting the horrific realisation that somewhere along the way, my brain has
30 been trained to process reality through an audience. Sharing became how I made my own
life real; if a tree fell in a forest, and I didn’t tweet about it, did it even happen? At times, I
 3C Article n°2

feel like something terrible and irreversible has taken place; that I’ll never be able to walk
down a street listening to a beautiful piece of music and not get the urge to convert the
sheer joy of the experience into a social media post, or a text to a friend to make it real.

35 But every time I resist that grubby (= sordide) pull, there’s a small rush of triumph – and
liberation. Now I’ve had a taste of what keeping things close feels like, I crave it (= avoir un
grand besoin de qqch). It’s a delicious secret, a reclamation of power I wasn’t aware I’d
surrendered (= abandoné). Choosing what to share, with who and when, prompts necessary
pauses – do I really need to mention this detail? Is this information I want out there long
40 term? Do I even have the necessary consent to trumpet a certain story to all and sundry (tout
le monde)?

None of this means I’ve stopped sharing altogether. That would be a lonely life indeed. But
I have become far more selective about exactly what information reaches an audience wider
than my inner circle.